On Friday, speculation intensified that the Russian military may have played a role in the attack Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash that killed 38 people and left 29 survivors injured in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, with experts casting doubt on Moscow’s proposal that the flight of birds is to blame.

Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, an Embraer 190, was flying from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the city of Grozny in Russia’s North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted two days later for reasons that were not yet clear. At some point during the flight, the plane’s GPS tracking was allegedly disrupted, leading to significant deviations in the flight path.

The plane crashed while trying to reach another airport in Aktau, in western Kazakhstan, after flying east across the Caspian Sea. It crashed and exploded in a ball of flame only about three miles from Aktau Airport.

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia opened investigations into the cause of the crash, but Russia faced the biggest questions two days later. The Kremlin urged people not to jump to conclusions, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who has forged closer ties between his country and Russia during his two decades in power, also said it was too early to speculate.

“The information I received is that the plane changed course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed for Aktau airport, where it crashed after landing,” he said, after Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, suggested that there was a collision with birds. theory.

But a U.S. official told CBS News that there are initial indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system may have hit the plane in a region where Ukrainian and Russian forces have exchanged fire with drones and missiles for months. The official, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity, said that if proven true, it would further highlight Russia’s recklessness in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Independent aviation experts also cast doubt on the bird strike theory and pointed to damage seen on the plane’s fuselage as evidence for an even worse possible explanation.

“It sure doesn’t look like a flock of birds,” said CBS News aviation safety analyst Robert Sumwalt, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Birds are not flying at the altitude where the initial damage occurred on this aircraft,” Sumwalt added.

Instead, the damage has the hallmarks of shrapnel from an air gun, and British military veteran and security analyst Justin Crump told CBS News affiliate BBC News that “the most likely hypothesis is that it was hit by an anti-aircraft missile — almost certainly Russian.”

Azerbaijan Airlines, in a statement carried by international news agencies on Friday, said the plane experienced “external physical and technical disturbances” during the flight, without offering further information.

Some survivors of the crash said they heard an explosion before it crashed.

“Ukrainian drones were active at the time, and that’s comparable to anything we’ve seen in terms of pilot communication with air traffic control,” Crump told the BBC.

Ukraine has relied heavily on explosive drones hit Russian military and infrastructure targets within the neighboring country’s much larger western territory over the past year, and Russia frequently shoots down weapons with its air defense systems.

For many observers, the circumstances of the crash of Azerbaijan Airlines and the damage to the wreckage of the plane reminded of downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight on the 17th in 2014. That passenger plane was hit by a missile launched by Russian-backed forces over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Survivors of the crash are among those desperate for answers in Kazakhstan’s latest disaster, including a man who said from his hospital bed that he was sitting next to his wife on the plane when it crashed.

“I haven’t seen my wife since,” he said.

Investigators recovered both so-called “black boxes” — flight data and cockpit voice recorders — from the crash site. Experts from Brazil, where the plane was built, were due to arrive in Kazakhstan on Friday to help retrieve and analyze their information.

As formal investigations intensified, the Ukrainian government called on Friday to hold Russia responsible for the crash, as Azerbaijan Airlines reportedly halted scheduled flights to seven cities in Russia.

Chris Livesay

Chris Livesay is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in Rome.